Introduction to the training course "Ethics"

The training course "Ethics" has as its purpose the introduction to ethical information for the subsequent independent moral creativity. The development of moral values ​​involves their transition to the personal meanings of each person.

As a result of studying the course of lectures, you need to know : key ethical teachings; the main stages in the development of morality; the specifics of morality and its conceptual and categorical apparatus; content of higher moral values.

In the text of the lectures for the convenience of mastering the material stand out:

· Bold underscore - sub-questions within the lecture question;

· Bold - semantic units within the sub-question of the lecture;

· Bold italics - basic concepts of the topic and personalities;

· Underline - the main thoughts on the subject.

Ethics - the philosophical doctrine of morality (morality) . The philosophical nature of ethical knowledge is manifested in the fact that it is based on ideas and the categorial apparatus of philosophy. Ethics is called "practical philosophy" , "the doctrine of a correct life" , which is built on the basis of general ideas about the essence of the world and the place of a person in it.

Morality and morality are real spiritual and social phenomena studied by ethics. Moral in ethical literature refers to those aspects of this phenomenon that relate primarily to consciousness (as they say: moral consciousness, moral intent, moral evaluation, moral convictions, moral principles). Moral is usually called those aspects that relate to the behavior of the individual, to the manifestations of morality in the social reality (as they say: moral relations, moral activity, moral act). In this course, the concepts of morality and ethics will be used interchangeably.

Aristotle on the fresco by Rafael "The Athenian School"

Ethics (Greek ἠθικόν, from the ancient Greek ἦθος - ethos, “character, custom”) is a philosophical discipline, the subject of study of which is morality and ethics ^[1] . Initially, the meaning of the word ethos was a joint dwelling and the rules generated by a joint hostel, the norms that unite society, the overcoming of individualism and aggressiveness. As society develops, this meaning is added to the study of conscience, compassion, friendship, the meaning of life, self-sacrifice, etc. ^[2] The concepts developed by ethics - mercy, justice, friendship, solidarity, etc., guide the moral development of social institutions and relations ^{[ 1]} .

In science, ethics is a field of knowledge, and morality or morality is what it studies. In the living language, this distinction is still missing ^[1] .

The term ethics is sometimes also used to refer to the system of moral and ethical norms of a particular social group.

Subject of ethics

Some researchers have noted the difficulty in defining the subject of ethics as a philosophical discipline. Unlike the natural sciences, whose subject is connected with the world of natural phenomena, which makes it possible to designate an object by indicating objects of reality, ethics and philosophy presuppose the assimilation of a certain minimum of philosophical knowledge so that an understanding of the subject can come. A review of the history of ethical representations ^[⇨] allows you to become familiar with the subject of ethics. ^[3]

Main ethical issues

• The problem of the criteria of good and evil, virtues and vices
• The problem of the meaning of life and the purpose of man
• The problem of free will
• The problem of due, its combination with the natural desire for happiness ^[1]

Classification of ethical values

According to N. Hartmann, the whole diversity of moral values ​​is divided into basic and private. The first, which are the basis of all the others, include the benefit and the adjacent values ​​of nobility, fullness and purity. Private values, or virtues, are divided into three groups:

• values ​​of ancient morality - justice, wisdom, courage, self-control; it also includes Aristotle values ​​based on the principle of the middle;
• values ​​of the "cultural circle of Christianity" - love of neighbor; truthfulness and sincerity; hope and loyalty; trust and faith; modesty, humility, distance; values ​​of external treatment;
• other values: love for the distant, giving virtue, personal love. ^[four]

Ethics history

Short review

Selection of ethics as a special aspect of philosophy is connected with the discovery made by the sophists (V century BC), that the establishment of culture differs significantly from the laws of nature. Unlike natural necessity, which is the same everywhere, the laws, customs, customs of people are varied and changeable. There was the problem of comparing different laws and customs in order to find out which of them is better. The choice between cultural institutions that differ from different nations, as well as varying from generation to generation, turned out to be dependent on their justification. The source of their justification was the mind. ^[3]

This idea was taken up and developed by Socrates and Plato. ^[3]

Ethics is inseparable from philosophy already at its very origin ^[5] . This term was first used by Aristotle as the designation of a particular field of study of “practical” philosophy, for it tries to answer the question: what should we do? The main purpose of moral behavior, Aristotle called happiness - the activity of the soul in the fullness of virtue, that is, self-realization. Self-realization of a person is reasonable actions that avoid extremes and keep a golden middle. Therefore, the main virtue is moderation and prudence.

According to Plato's student Aristotle, the goal of ethics is not knowledge, but actions. The question of what is good in ethics is related to the question of how to achieve it. "Thus, ethics as a practical philosophy was separated from theoretical philosophy (metaphysics)." ^[3]

The starting point of ethics is not the principles, but the experience of social life; therefore, the same accuracy that is peculiar to, for example, mathematics is unattainable in it; the truth in it is established "approximately and in general terms" ^[6] . ^[3]

Aristotle notes that human actions are expedient, that every activity has its own purpose, that goals form a hierarchy. According to Aristotle, one should allow a higher, final goal, which should be desired for its own sake, and not be a means for some other purpose. It is she who in the proper sense of the word, or the highest good, will determine the measure of the perfection of a person and social institutions. ^[3]

The highest good is called happiness. Happiness requires external goods and good fortune, but mainly it depends on the perfect activity of the soul — on an activity consistent with virtue. The property of the soul to act in accordance with the virtues and is, according to Aristotle, the subject of ethics. ^[3]

In a broad sense, Aristotle's ethics is the science of the policy (political science), which sets the basis for politics and economics.

The so-called “golden rule of ethics” - “do not do to others what you don’t want yourself”, existed in one form or another independently in different cultures. It is present in Confucius ^[7] ; it is found in the Mishna ^[8] .

In the process of developing ethical theories, philosophers encountered significant difficulties in unifying terminology, since different theories declared different concepts basic, often vague, subjective or contradictory (good and evil, meaning of life, etc.). Moreover, due to the fact that ethics considers individual morality related to protected subconscious mechanisms, in-depth analysis is hampered by the operation of psychological defenses that block the critical analysis of subconscious attitudes.

The peculiarities of religious ethical systems are that in religions containing a personified god, God is an object of morality, and the norms that are imperatively declared religion as divine are becoming basic, ethics of social relations as a system of moral obligations towards society is complemented (or replaced) by divine ethics - a system of moral obligations towards God, to the point that it may conflict (sometimes social or even mass) with public morality. It should be borne in mind that the classical studies of ethics were conducted, mainly, speculatively, by a researcher by his own example, and therefore often are replete with a generalization of personal principles and restrictions on ethics in general. Analytical ethics, which, in particular, uses formal logic to analyze ethical statements and build valid ethical judgments, is seeking to overcome this subjectivity.

Modern state of ethics

• Modernity leads on the one hand to the relativization of ethics (nihilism), and on the other hand to the expansion of the field of ethics: the concept of good extends to relationships with nature (biocentric ethics) and scientific experiments (bioethics).
• In the wake of feminism, ethics has received a gender interpretation: instead of abstract humanity or humanity (criticism of which has reached the apogee of the modern concept of "human death"), virtues can be grouped in opposition to masculinity and femininity.
• Albert Schweitzer put forward the principle of reverence for life, based on the ethics of non-violence of Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi. In his book "Culture and Ethics" A. Schweitzer analyzed the history of ethics and its state in the XX century, and also outlined the ways of its development.
• Teilhard de Chardin in his work "The Phenomenon of Man" combines traditional ethics with the theory of evolution.
• The development of medicine and biotechnology has led to the rapid development of bioethics as an analysis of the ethical difficulties arising from the adoption of medical, legal and other decisions.

Sections of ethics

Being a practical, moral philosophy that describes correct and dignified behavior, ethics is at the same time a system of knowledge about the nature and origin of morality. This determines the presence of its two main functions - moral education and cognitive education, therefore, ethics can be divided into two areas - normative ethics, aimed at life history and theoretical ethics, which cognizes morality. This division into different, though interrelated disciplines took shape in the 2nd half of the 20th century ^[9] .

Theoretical ethics

Theoretical ethics is a scientific discipline, which considers morality as a special social phenomenon, finds out what it is, how morality differs from other social phenomena. Theoretical ethics studies the origin, historical development, patterns of functioning, social role and other aspects of morality and ethics. Its methodological basis is the knowledge, concepts and ideas relating to the scientific knowledge of morality.

There are scientific disciplines besides ethics that study morality as part of their subject area.

• Sociology and social psychology are concerned with the social functions of morality, the rules it proclaims in comparison with other social phenomena;
• Personality psychology studies the physiological basis of morality;
• Logic and linguistics - the language of morality, the rules and forms of normative-ethical logic.

The results of research obtained by these sciences, related to the essence, origin and functioning of morality and ethics, uses and summarizes theoretical ethics ^[9] .

Metaetics

The direction of analytical ethics, analyzing ethics as a scientific discipline, as well as the origin and significance of ethical categories and concepts by the methods of logical-linguistic analysis ^[10] . Ethical research of the beginning and middle of the XX century is associated with metaethics. The first study in the field of meta-ethics is the work of George E. Moore's "Principles of Ethics". Questions on the subject, structure and purpose of ethics in dictionaries, reference books and textbooks actually deal with meta-ethics ^[11] .

Non-cognitivism, as a direction of meta-ethics, casts doubt on the cognitive status of ethics, that is, the knowability of ethical concepts due to their uncertainty and, accordingly, the very fact that ethics as a science is acceptable. In an effort to adequately explore diverse ethical concepts and understand the arguments of cognitivism and non-cognitivism, meta-ethics used the concepts and ideas of general philosophy and axiology, general and social psychology, sociology, biology, etc. The cognitive approach is not limited only to the field of ethics, it is one of the most important methodological principles of the philosophy of consciousness as a whole. Thus, knowledge is understood not as a narrow sense of the word (as a reflection of reality), but also includes human values, goals, norms, preferences, interests, will, affects, etc. In reality cognitivism actually prevailed in the history of philosophy, it seemed immediate and self-evident. not requiring justification or formulation ^[11] .

Regulatory ethics

Regulatory ethics searches for a principle (or principles) governing a person’s behavior, directing his actions, establishing criteria for evaluating moral good, as well as a rule that can act as a general principle for all cases ^[11] .

Regulatory ethics aims to maintain fundamental moral values ​​in society, sets standards of behavior in everyday life situations. Appealing to reason, normative ethics use evidence, an argument, an argument; by this, unlike moralizing, it is attractive to a critically thinking person, they form moral convictions. Reasoning, meaningfully justifying the provisions of morality, transforms moral norms that are external to the individual into internal feelings that motivate behavior ^[9] .

The indisputability of the status of moral concepts and assessments is carried out in two main ways - by giving them either supernatural mystical, divine meaning, or natural-objective meaning ^[9] .

Regulatory ethics can be viewed from two perspectives: cognitive and non-cognitive. At the same time, from the point of view of the noncognitivist position, normative ethics is considered as an element of moral consciousness and is opposed to descriptive ethics as knowledge of morality. From the cognitive point of view, normative ethics does not differ from morality and, thus, is its own object of study, and the concepts of morality and moral knowledge are mixed ^[11] .

Historical areas of normative ethics - stoicism, hedonism, epicoreanism; modern - sequentialism, utilitarianism, deontology.

Applied ethics

Applied (practical) ethics studies particular problems and the application of moral ideas and principles formulated in normative ethics in specific situations of moral choice. Applied ethics closely interacts with the socio-political sciences.

Sections of applied ethics

• Bioethics - The doctrine of the moral side of human activity in medicine and biology. In the narrow sense, the concept of bioethics refers to the whole range of ethical problems in the interaction of the doctor and the patient. Ambiguous situations that constantly arise in practical medicine as a result of the progress of biological science and medical knowledge require constant discussion both in the medical community and among the general public. In a broad sense, the term bioethics refers to the study of social, environmental, medical, and socio-legal problems affecting not only humans, but also any living organisms included in the ecosystems surrounding them. In this sense, bioethics has a philosophical orientation, evaluates the results of the development of new technologies and ideas in medicine and biology as a whole.
• Computer ethics
• Medical ethics
• Professional ethics
• Social ethics
• Political ethics
• Environmental ethics
• Business Ethics (Business Ethics)
• Legal ethics

Types of ethical concepts

• Religious ethics justifies morality authoritarianly, while God personifies Good, moral norms act as divine commandments and therefore are absolutely obligatory. Since God often controls the implementation of his laws, giving everyone his due, the intrinsic value of Good and other moral values ​​is lost, it is replaced by the threat of punishment or the promise of reward ^[9] .
• Autonomous ethics
• Voluntarism
• Hedonism
• Heteronic ethics
• Contextual ethics
• Moral absolutism
• Moral relativism
• Formalism
• Evdemonism
• Ethics of values

see also

• Agathology
• Axiology
• Category: Personalia: Ethics
• Human values
• Christian ethics
• Professional ethics